Thank you, George, for a job well done.

Ibennetch WROTE:

“(A friend) thinks he’s getting HD from the cable company, when he is not. It’s just stretched 4:3 video (so people look short and fat).”

I have a term for this phenomenon, which is “Television from the heavy gravity planet.” Your friend is not alone; too many people are fooled by marketing hype. Another big misconception is “because it is digital it HAS to be better.” That is like saying Ansel Adams was a great photographer because he owned and used a $5000. View Camera. It wasn’t the camera it was the mind behind the camera that made him great. It is not digital in and of itself it is how the technology is utilized that will make it better.

Ibennetch WROTE:

“I recently read a published article, available online but published in one of the better known newspapers (but I don’t recall which) which explicitly stated that cable TV is also subject to the same February 2009 analog cutoff the over-the-air is (that is incorrect).”

This may differ from market to market. Larger Metro markets and major cable operators may very well continue sending in Analog as well as Digital. Some smaller, and some more rural markets may not have the technical and financial resources to send in both technologies. The only way to find out is for the consumer to contact the local cable operator for the correct answers. The official Federal Government Website on digital television http://www.dtv.gov makes the following statement in their FAQ section concerning your point. This can be found at http://www.dtv.gov/consumercorner.html#faq29:

“Does the DTV transition affect TV sets that are connected to cable services?

No. If you subscribe to cable service, the DTV transition should not affect any TV sets that are connected to your cable services. The DTV transition applies only to full-power broadcast television stations – stations that use the public airwaves to transmit their programming to viewers through a broadcast antenna.”

“Will cable customers with analog TVs have to buy or rent a set-top box from their cable company? If so, how much will it cost?

First, it’s important to know that the February 17, 2009 deadline for the digital television transition only applies to full-power broadcast stations. Cable companies are not required by the government to transition their systems to digital, and can continue to deliver channels to their customers in analog. Cable companies are actually required by FCC rules to continue offering local broadcast stations to their customers in analog as long as they offer any analog service. This requirement will continue for at least three years after February 17, 2009. The Commission will decide in 2011 whether the requirement should be continued beyond February 17, 2012. This means that customers who receive analog cable service (without a cable set-top box) will be able to continue to do so.

However, for business reasons (among other things, digital is much more efficient than analog), cable companies may be interested in transitioning their systems from analog delivery to digital delivery. If a cable company makes the business decision to go all-digital (meaning it will stop offering any channels to its customers in analog), it must ensure that its analog customers can continue to watch their local broadcast stations. This may require customers with analog televisions to get a set-top box. If the cable company provides the customer with a set-top box, any costs related to it will be determined by the cable company. Therefore, it is recommended that analog cable customers contact their cable company to ask if a set-top box will be needed, when it will be needed, and if there will be a cost.

It is also important to note that a cable set-top box is different from a digital-to-analog converter box. A digital-to-analog converter box is necessary only for analog televisions that receive their programming over-the-air using a rooftop antenna or “rabbit ears” connected to the set. A digital-to-analog converter box is not necessary for a TV connected to a paid television service such as a cable or satellite TV provider. Information on any set-top boxes needed for a paid service such as cable or satellite should be obtained from the service provider.”

Consumers need to do their research. AS you found there are many inaccurate resources giving the wrong information. -33-

“‘Well, fix it. You’re a television engineer.’” and “Visions of my mom bragging to all her neighbors about what a smart son she has began to fade” really got me laughing.

I worry about what everyone is going to do in February. It shouldn’t be this hard. My parents made the jump to a (small CRT) digital-ready TV and still don’t understand why there are two or three subchannels for most stations. They actually “got it” a lot quicker than I expected, though. My buddy who has a 50-or-some-other-huge-number inch rear projection TV (which may or may not even be HD-capable) thinks he’s getting HD from the cable company, when he is not. It’s just stretched 4:3 video (so people look short and fat). Of course, I’ve seen the same thing in the HD demos of some consumer electronics stores; if they can’t get their signals correctly how can they sell to the uneducated consumer?

Part of the problem is that consumers have so many sources of “tainted” information. The TV set manufacturers wanted to sell more TVs, so they came up with “HD-Ready” or whatever they called the sets that were capable of displaying an HD signal but had no ATSC tuner. So the public, who already just wanted to watch Wheel or Days or whatever (and don’t care about the infomercials and all which you discovered) doesn’t care about NTSC vs ATSC vs QAM (or whatever the cable companies are using these days). I have to care — or want to anyway, since I work in TV, but my parents shouldn’t need to read the label and understand the difference between “NTSC tuner” and “NTSC/ATSC tuner” on their new set. It’s all in the marketing (where we’ve gone astray, that is). For TV engineers like yourself, yes, the label is critically important. For the general public, who doesn’t even understand why you would chop off the top and bottom of the picture in a letterbox video in the first place — much less the difference between analog over-the-air, digital over-the-air, analog cable, digital cable, HD, non-HD 16:9 widescreen…[SIGH].

I feel I’ve ranted enough, so I’ll close with this thought. I recently read a published article, available online but published in one of the better known newspapers (but I don’t recall which) which explicitly stated that cable TV is also subject to the same February 2009 analog cutoff the over-the-air is (that is incorrect). If people are reading information that is outright wrong, how can one even try to educate themselves?

These days with so much information being stored on digital medium (ie hard drives), it’s important to also have a good backup plan. Additionally, DVD shelf life is “iffy” and the media is cheap, so it’s probably a good idea to make multiple copies of your DVDs every few years.

Dubbing older materials to a digital medium is certainly an excellent idea, but some of your readers may not realize that even digital materials (such as DVDs) may degrade over time.

My favorite bit in the movie Men in Black: Agent Kay holds up a tiny disk and says, “Fascinating little gadget. Gonna replace CDs soon. Guess I’m gonna have to buy the White Album again.”

The rights and wrongs of marking optical media can be very confusing. I claim no expertise on the subject but rely on researching several trusted sources such as the NIST and others.

Typing the search term CD Marking Pens into several randomly selected, major search engines yielded many hits for “Write Safe” type of markers. As one visits the links they find that many manufacturers claim their product to be solvent free and safe to use. That is their opinion, not the opinion of this writer.

My personal method is to mark an identifying number on the clear hub or more detailed information on the case or sleeve. I never write on the surface of the disc itself nor would I apply a label. That way the data area is not subject to any pressure or stress. -33-

At the Sharpie website FAQ’s about using their markers on CDs (http://www.sharpie.com/enUS/FAQ/default.html), they state: “Sanford has used Sharpie markers on CDs for years and we have never experienced a problem. We do not believe that the Sharpie ink can affect these CDs, however we have not performed any long-term laboratory testing to verify this. We have spoken to many major CD manufacturers about this issue. They use the Sharpie markers on CDs internally as well, and do not believe that the Sharpie ink will cause any harm to their products. ” So it would seem that all they are saying is that their markers haven’t caused any troubles that we know of but we really haven’t done any long term testing so don’t hold us accountable.

…and Radium was once a good idea for glow in the dark clock & watch faces…

Now existing analog TV’s are being made obsolete with the coming of digital TV and no one’s squawked. Hmmm…….

BTW, the decision to use the RCA color system I feel also helped to significantly hinder the spread of color TV. After the initial excitement of color broadcasts in late 1953 and sales of color TV sets beginning in 1954, the spread of color stalled and actually declined somewhat even with yearly predictions by David Sarnoff of the bright future of color TV. In reality, the RCA color system was inferior and sets were very costly (“mechanical” color sets using the CBS system would have cost less). It wasn’t until the late 60’s that network television had completely converted to color.